Daniel Faggella is the founder and CEO at Emerj. Called upon by the United Nations, World Bank, INTERPOL, and many global enterprises, Daniel is a sought-after expert on the competitive strategy implications of AI for business and government leaders.

Carnegie Mellon announced that it will dedicate a $10 million gift from the K&L Gates Foundation to the establishment of a new K&L Gates Endowment for Ethics and Computational Technologies. Carnegie Mellon President Subra Suresh expressed gratitude for the grant, commenting on CMU’s work ahead:

“It is not just technology that will determine how this century unfolds. Our future will also be influenced strongly by how humans interact with technology, how we foresee and respond to the unintended consequences of our work, and how we ensure that technology is used to benefit humanity, individually and as a society.”

The foundation will support new faculty chairs, three new Presidential Fellowships for doctoral students, a biennial conference, scholarships to recognize undergraduate students’ achievements in the artificial intelligence and related fields.

Citi Ventures, responsible for investments in innovative technologies and companies, is making an investment in Feedzai, a machine learning company that specializes in real-time fraud protection. The investment parallels with Citi Global Innovations Labs’ active interests in applications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics. Ramneek Gupta, managing director and co-head of investing for Citi Labs, commented on the symbiotic relationship of pairing AI capabilities that enhance the human role in directing AI as Citi and other financial institutions seek to better protect consumers.

The pursuit of pioneering smart virtual assistants and chatbots is trending across industries, and more than 33,000 new bots have been created since Facebook opened its Messenger service six months ago and invited developers to build them on the communications platform. A primary objective for current developers is to build a more natural interface between machines and humans – an assistant that’s not too human and not too robot-like. Stan Chudnovsky, vice president and head of product for Messenger at Facebook, predicts that people and AI-powered chatbots will conduct complex dialogs in the next two years. Chatbots are still in their infant stage, with companies like ADP working with social anthropologists and copywriters to help improve chatbot behavior.

While autonomous cars have gotten more than their fair share of attention from the media, self-driving trucks and big rigs have made a more veiled emergence in the hands of researchers and entrepreneurs. Uber recently acquired Otto, which developed self-driving big rig technology. Alain Kornhauser, Head of the Autonomous Vehicle Engineering program at Princeton University, notes that long-haul trucks are well suited for self-driving technology – they drive mainly on well-marked highways, which are generally smoother and free of pedestrians. He believes self-driving trucks will be in use within a decade, but it’s likely those trucks will still have a human driver at the wheel – in case something goes awry.

A new robotic arm will help physicians reduce the time spent placing a needle for biopsy from an average 30 minutes to 5 minutes. The arm was developed by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automa-tion IPA’s Project group for Automation in Medicine and Biotechnology PAMB and the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing MEVIS and is being shown at the MEDICA trade fair in Düsseldorf from November 14 to 17. This more efficient human-robot collaboration provides other benefits, such as reducing the amount of radiation exposure to both patients and doctors from the X-Ray used to help insert a needle into tissue. Researchers predict the arm will be in the market in three years.

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On Wednesday, the Google Brain Team introduced Magenta, a research project that will use machine learning to create art and compose music. The team will use TensorFlow and release its models on GitHub, posting demos, tutorials, and technical papers along the way. Though no date was given, the team said it would soon accept code contributions from the larger community. While exploring the creative capabilities of deep learning, the team also states that they hope Magenta will foster a community of machine learning researchers, coders, and artists to help pioneer new tools for art and music creation. The Magenta team will also work closely with the Artists and Machine Intelligence Project (AMI) and the Google Cultural Institute to connect artists with technology.

In 1956, ten of the world's leading electrical engineers convened on the burgeoning topic of "Artificial Intelligence" - which was far from being recognized as a field. A decade later, the progress of early AI efforts had some researchers envisioning a relatively easy glide to human-level intelligence in machines.

Cancer cells have found new foes in AI and the Nordic countries. In just the passed month, both Sweden’s Uppsala University (UU) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have announced systems that accelerate cancer treatment research and diagnoses. By joining genetics with computer science researchers at the DTU have developed a self-learning computer program that can successfully locate the disease 85 percent of the time. Meanwhile UU’s "new smart research robot” assists doctors in finding optimal cancer treatment combinations for their patients.

On Wednesday, the Google Brain Team introduced Magenta, a research project that will use machine learning to create art and compose music. The team will use TensorFlow and release its models on GitHub, posting demos, tutorials, and technical papers along the way. Though no date was given, the team said it would soon accept code contributions from the larger community. While exploring the creative capabilities of deep learning, the team also states that they hope Magenta will foster a community of machine learning researchers, coders, and artists to help pioneer new tools for art and music creation. The Magenta team will also work closely with the Artists and Machine Intelligence Project (AMI) and the Google Cultural Institute to connect artists with technology.

In 1956, ten of the world's leading electrical engineers convened on the burgeoning topic of "Artificial Intelligence" - which was far from being recognized as a field. A decade later, the progress of early AI efforts had some researchers envisioning a relatively easy glide to human-level intelligence in machines.

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